Matt Blesso spoke to the Wall Street Journal and New York Timesabout blending city and country on his Manhattan rooftop; Richard Dattner’s 1960s playground designs feature prominently in a Cabinetmagazine article; Phil Enquist spoke with Chicago radio station WBEZ about the future of the Chicago River, one he hopes includes fishing and swimming; Architectural Recordinvestigated how Michael Manfredi and Marion Weiss’ Brooklyn Botanic Garden Visitor Center uses earth and plants to amplify its design; also according to Architectural Record, Rob Rogers and Jonathan Marvel are ‘hitting their stride’ with the commission to design a hotel and condominium overlooking Brooklyn Bridge Park (above).

The jury for Manhattan’s AIDS Memorial Park design competition, led by Michael Arad, announced its winner; Craig Dykers’ Snøhetta and Gregg Pasquarelli’s SHoP Architects are both finalists in a competition to design a major light rail transfer hub in downtown Houston; Paul Schmidt, who recently retired from his post as Executive Director of Sacramento’s Capitol Area Development Authority after 36 years of service to the State of California and the Capitol Area Plan, was elected to the board of the California Housing Partnership Corporation; and Rob Rogers‘ firm Rogers Marvel is one of nine finalists in the competition, managed by Donald Stastny, to redesign Austin’s Waller Creek area.

There are two new titles out from Tom Angotti, includingService-Learning in Design and Planning, co-edited with Cheryl Doble and Paula Horrigan, and Accidental Warriors and Battlefield Myths, Angotti’s first collection of short stories; Richard Sennett’sTogether: The Rituals, Pleasures, and Politics of Collaboration was excerpted in Salon, reviewed by the New Scientist, and called “a whirlwind of big ideas” by the Washington Post; Frederick Steiner’s latest, Urban Ecological Design, is now available at a bookstore near you; and Barbara Wilks‘ West Harlem Piers Park is featured in John Hill’s new Guide to Contemporary New York Architecture (Update: Hill’s guide also includes several recent works by Thomas Balsley!)

The Wall Street Journal spoke to Tom Angotti about the Bloomberg-era evolution of zoning in New York City, and published a wonderful profile of Michael Arad; Architecttalked to Board Member Tami Hausman about how architecture firms can (and should) use social media strategically; Luca Farinelli’s “53 Questions, 265 Answers” in Log 23 features interviews with Patron Steven Holl and Board Member Thom Mayne; the WSJfeaturesStephan Jaklitsch and Mark Gardner’s renovation of Marc Jacobs’ private Soho showroom; Patricia Lancaster expressed surprise at Related’s decision to hire a California contractor for the massive Hudson Yards project in Manhattan; Gregg Pasquarelli’s Pier 15 opened along Manhattan’s East River Waterfront Esplanade; Linda Pollak’s new Elmhurst Branch of the Queens Library, which is wrapping up construction, was featured on NY1; and Rosemary Wakeman was quoted in a Corpus Christi Caller-Timesarticle about the relationship between streetscapes and civic pride.

The Sam Fox School of Design and Visual Arts at St. Louis’ Washington University announced its spring lecture series, with Craig Dykers set to speak tonight (2/1), and visits from Gregg Pasquarelli and Richard Sennett scheduled for later this semester; Rob Rogers will speak about Rogers Marvel’s recent work (including President’s Park South, pictured at left) at the National Building Museum in Washington on 2/2; Denise Hoffman Brandt and Board Member Toni Griffin have organized a panel, Defining Cultural Landscapes, at CCNY on 2/3 (with opening remarks by Olympia Kazi); the Center for Architecture will host the panelFreedom of Assembly: Public Space Today Redux on 2/4, with Thomas Balsley, Rick Bell, Lance Jay Brown, and Susan Chin all participating (Brown will be back at the Center, with David Dixon, for a discussion about Climate Change on 2/17); Bruce Fowle will speak at the Center’s Active Design 201 on 2/7; Board Member Claire Weisz will speak in New York, also on 2/7, at the Studio-X panel Trash Tubes of the Future; Board Member Enrique Norten will give a talk at the Preservation Foundation of Palm Beach on 2/9; that same day, in New York, Ernie Hutton will moderate a discussion on the Miami21 zoninginitiative; and a new exhibit at the National Academy, featuring work by Robert A.M. Stern, has just opened and will remain on view in New York through 4/29.

In a Crain’s New York article about growth patterns in Brooklyn over the past decade, Tom Angotti did not mince words, stating that “The development has been very uneven and unequal. Instead of the vibrant city that was more diverse, it’s becoming a city of separate enclaves.” Speaking in her official capacity as the chair of the Hell’s Kitchen Neighborhood Association’s planning committee, Meta Brunzemacheered Governor Andrew Cuomo’s proposal to tear down the Javits Center: “I hate to say it, but [Hudson River Park's] really inadequate around here and everyone knows it. The Javits Center is an obstacle to it really becoming a great park.” And Saskia Sassen, in an Artforum piece on the sociopolitical conditions that led up to OWS (pictured at left), writes that “The Occupy movements are emergent assemblages of fragments of various national (and global) territories. Their reclamation of public space is also a response to the increasingly palpable insufficiency of the logic of the nation-state.”

Deborah Gans‘ new rose window for the Museum at Eldridge Street, designed in collaboration with artist Kiki Smith (and pictured at left), received a 2011 Faith & Form award from the IFRAA Awards Program for Religious Art & Architecture; the Land Art Generator Initiative design competition announced its kickoff, with Executive Director Anne Guiney on the jury (deadline: 7/1/12); recipients of the 2012 AIA Honor Awards were announced–among the winners are Rob Rogers and Board Members Toni Griffin, Thom Mayne, and Enrique Norten; Rosemary Wakeman was awarded a EURIAS Senior Fellowship, and will spend the next academic year at the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Studies completing her book on the New Town Movement; Womens’ E-News will honorBeverly Willis as one of their 21 Leaders for the 21st Century at a gala reception this May.

On 1/17, the Storefront for Art and Architecture will host an opening reception for artist Allard van Hoorn’s 007 Urban Songline, which will transform the iconic facade designed by Patron Steven Holl and Vito Acconci (pictured at left) into a musical instrument; also on 1/17, Rick Bell’s Center for Architecture will hold a “Breakthrough” party to mark the connection of the existing and new gallery spaces; Ken Greenberg will open a conference on the future of Montreal’s Griffintown neighborhood on 1/20; Rosemary Wakeman’s Urban Studies Program at Forham will host the panelUrban Dialogues II: Making Cities Work on 1/23; and that same day, Gregg Pasquarelli and Board Member Thom Mayne will participate in the Columbia GSAPP’s symposiumWhere is More Manhattan?

Bentonville’s 21c Museum Hotel, designed by Deborah Berke, broke ground last month; Urban Omnibus visited Matthew Berman’s BLDG 92 museum and visitors center at the Brooklyn Navy Yard; Andrew Bernheimer and his sister Kate, an award-winning fairy tale author, collaborated on a three-partseries of posts at Places Journal that gives architectural form to famous fairy tale houses; Matt Blesso and Mark Gardner were bothinterviewed as part of openhousenewyork’s “I Am OHNY” series; NYC Media released a video extolling the virtues of Colin Cathcart’s Greenhouse Project at Manhattan’s P.S. 333; the first renderings of a curvaceous new Maggie’s Centre in Aberdeen, Scotland, designed by Craig Dykers, made a splash; Vince Ferrandino is leading the effort to build a solid transition team for Mount Vernon, New York’s mayor-elect Ernie Davis; Mary Margaret Jonesled a public forum on Hargreaves Associates’ new plan for Richmond’s James Riverfront; John Portman has opened a new office in Hong Kong–his fourth in Asia, after Shanghai, Seoul, and Mumbai; and it’s not every day that you can see a Fellow’s work in a big-screen blockbuster, but the ASLA’s The Dirt recently pointed out that John Wong’s Burj Khalifa Park has something of a “starring role” in the new Mission Impossible movie!

Speaking to the New York Observer about the AIA’s growing role in New York City politics, Rick Bell noted that “It used to be we were more reactive, waiting for the forum to air our views, and by then it was usually too late. Now we want to be there for the start of the discussion, or even initiating the discussion ourselves.” Chris Hardwickeexplained the 220-page report that he just completed on downtown Saskatoon as an innovative effort to gather hard data on day-to-day use of the city by its citizens: “It’s an atlas of public life. It’s unique to study people spending time in space…I think most people assume planning is for people, but because you don’t measure it, you can’t actually plan for it.” At the Zoning the City symposium earlier this month, Robert A.M. Stern responded to Mary Ann Tighe’s lament about Asia’s nascent preeminence in the great skyscraper race (and the related falling-behind of New York’s “romantic” skyline) with a cutting quip: “Let’s be real. There’s a lot of crap out there. I’m happy to come home.” (Video of all of the panels from that event, by the way, are now available online).